“There’s no place like home… there’s no place like home…” The immortal words of Dorothy in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and never a truer word has been spoken. Whether home is in a quaint little tourist town on New Zealand’s South Island, a bustling metropolis in the US of A, a charming village in the English midlands, a laid back town on the Australian east coast, a chic-slick suburban setting in Canada or nestled on the southern tip of Africa there really is no place like home.
Funny thing is though, the exact location of where home is has become less significant than it used to be and certainly easier to adapt to than say, 50 years ago. Imagine living where you do now without email, the internet, Skype, TV, movies, big sports events, low cost airlines, laptops or cellphones? Some may argue that we would be living in a better world but the fact remains that technology has eased the challenges associated with living far from your place of birth.
There is a common thread that runs through all of us – and I use the word us loosely. The us that I speak of is the South African in us, but this could be the same for any society. The thread that makes us South African is woven from the fabric of knowing what a real braai smells like, of people who remember David Karmer’s rooi vellies, and his Agg please daddy won’t you take me to the drive-in, of biltong and chops, blatjang and potjies, it’s about understanding “eish”, “lekker” and “shweet bru”, knowing what “just now” means and remembering when Naas was Baas. It’s about recalling sunny skies and Chevrolet, Gerrie Coetzee, Michael de Morgan and Die Man van Staal. Having a connection to all of these things is what makes us South African, not where we live.
The fact is that no matter where you live in the world, you can easily tug on some of the common thread that makes us all us thanks in large to technology. Home is where the heart is and the things that remind me of being South African are never far from my heart.
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